Katie Lee writes about technology, web 2.0 and new media and was the founding editor of Shiny Shiny – the first gadgets site for women. She co-founded Shiny Media, and in 2008 was voted one of London’s most influential people by the Evening Standard. When she’s not on the internet, she’s camping in her woodland in Kent or making yet another crochet blanket in front of the TV.

New age gadgets make about as much sense as a USB Ghost Detector

I know what you're going to say, you're going to say that people who make decisions about their eating habits based on pseudo-scientific nutritionist advice probably don't trouble themselves with the finer details of scientific research.
But watching a programme about raw foodists the other week, I couldn't quite believe the technology that some of them pour their faith into. While they're insisting that cooked food is polluting our bodies, they're also strapping battery-powered plastic boxes filled with magnets and copper coins to their chests in the firm belief that it will zap parasites (including germs and viruses).

Small necklaces can protect from exposure to electrical appliances, and stickers on your phone that cost 1p from Amazon will stop you getting brain cancer.

The website that sells the impressively named Terminator II Zapper ($119) explains that the crystals in the product were developed using "extensive anecdotal evidence" and they work in a way that is "difficult to explain in conventional scientific terms".

To me, these products make about as much sense as the stuff that Solid Alliance churns out in Japan. As well as the wonder that is the Sushi Memory Drive, the company produces the highly necessary "Ghost Radar" which will alert you when there are "small changes in electro-magnetic turbulence" suggesting an other-wordly entity is nearby. They're also proud creators of the Aura Detector phone dongle and the UFO Sensor.

The fact that the company launched that particular product on 1st April suggests that they don't take it entirely seriously. And they don't make any claims that it will protect you from being possessed by a demon or anything outrageous like that. In fact, the main selling point appears to be that you get a small plastic toy ghost and a device that emits flashing lights and beeps when a ghost is nearby.